Leire Martínez takes another swipe at La Oreja de Van Gogh: “Blessed be the moment I decided to go it alone”

“Blessed be the moment I decided to go it alone”: Leire Martínez delivered this latest swipe at La Oreja de Van Gogh with the humour that has accompanied her new professional life. The singer is at the centre of a hair-removal advertising campaign in which she embraces her solo path.

Martínez left La Oreja de Van Gogh in 2024 after 17 years as the group’s singer. Her departure prompted controversy: she then made clear that she had neither signed nor agreed with the statement through which her former bandmates made their split public. The members of the group had explained, for their part, that they and Martínez no longer understood their work in the same way.

Since then, the singer has offered her own perspective through both her statements and her songs. She first released “Mi nombre”, a track in which she asserted her identity and referred to “replacements”, followed by “Cabeza de ratón”, inspired by a proverb that values leading one’s own path, even away from a larger-scale project.

Her new campaign revisits that idea through irony. Lying on a bed with white sheets, with a glass containing a daisy on the bedside table, Leire Martínez speaks directly to the camera and reflects on the moment she chose to continue on her own. “There comes a moment in life when you set out on your own. Sometimes, you are not sure how to begin, but you end up learning to do things your way. All by yourself and without anyone else’s help. In the end, it is about trusting the process and seeing how, little by little, you get results. Blessed be the moment I decided to go it alone,” she says.

In light of her recent path, the line appears capable of carrying an additional meaning, before the advertisement immediately reveals its comic twist. Martínez then takes an intense pulsed light device from a shelf and asks: “What did you think I was talking about?”

The images also contain several nods that may recall her time with La Oreja de Van Gogh. The opening shot, with the white bed and the glass holding a daisy, bears a notable resemblance to the cover of “Lo que te conté mientras te hacías la dormida”, one of the band’s best-known albums. That image also featured a glass with a daisy on the bedside table, but alongside it was a photograph of the band members. In the advertisement, that photograph has disappeared and Martínez is alone in the scene, a detail that may be interpreted as a nod to her current professional phase while remaining within the campaign’s humorous approach.

Another element may catch the attention of the band’s followers. During her speech about freedom and the beginning of a new stage, the singer gets out of bed and replaces a vase of wilted red roses with another filled with fresh white roses. The red roses may evoke “Rosas”, one of La Oreja de Van Gogh’s major hits during Martínez’s time as singer; within the advertising narrative, the change of flowers represents renewal and the move into a new stage.

Martínez has explained that she accepted taking part in the campaign from a humorous perspective. “In life, there is nothing better than laughing at yourself,” she said, while also defending the idea that her professional career “is much more than the years she spent in the group”.

It has also been reported that Amaia Montero returned to La Oreja de Van Gogh shortly after the split, a circumstance that increased the interest surrounding a separation that is still generating comment. Rather than making an explicit statement about her former band, the campaign combines recognisable references, double meanings and a message of independence and renewal to present Leire Martínez’s solo career with humour.